Radio and TV stations (to be referred to simply as “broadcasting stations” hereinafter) broadcast various programs. Viewers/listeners watch and listen to programs by receiving broadcast signals transmitted from various stations by means of radio receiving sets and TV receiving sets. Viewers/listeners can generally record broadcast information in the form of sounds and images of programs broadcast by broadcasting stations on certain conditions that are required to be met.
Broadcasting stations publicize information on broadcast programs such as the contents of broadcast programs and information on the pieces of music broadcast in programs (the titles and the names of the performing artists as well as the titles, the numbers, the released years and the selling agents of CDs (compact disks) where pieces of music are recorded along with the times and dates when the pieces of music are broadcast) and allow anyone who wants such information to acquire it by way of a personal computer (PC) or the like that is connected to the broadcasting station by way of a network.
Currently, such acquired information can be used to receive various services. For example, a person who has acquired such information can have pieces of music delivered to him or her and/or purchase CDs where such pieces of music are recorded by using the information on the pieces of music that the person has acquired.
There have been proposed systems where broadcasting stations broadcast music data, or pieces of music, and also they broadcast in advance image data such as jacket photographs for such pieces of music, text data including the titles of such pieces of music and sound data including sample sounds and compressed/encrypted data of proper music data so that users can receive them at their user terminals to watch the received images and/or listen to the received sounds. Additionally, with the proposed system, the user can acquire the proper music data during or after watching and/or listening by carrying out predetermined operations at the user terminal, using the compressed/encrypted data recorded in the user terminal, typically by way of an EMD (electric music distribution) server (see, inter alia, Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-183835 (paragraph numbers [0019]˜[0026], FIG. 1).
However, when the user is required to watch images and/or listen to sounds and record information on pieces of music while they are being broadcast so that he or she may sometime thereafter retrieve the delivered pieces of music or merchandised CDs where the pieces of music are recorded, using the recorded information, it may be difficult for the user to accurately recollect the sounds of the pieces of music and the images relating to them, if the user simply knows the titles of the pieces of music, the names of the performing artists, the time and date of the broadcast and so on, particularly when the number of pieces of music is large and hence a large number of names and other pieces of information are involved. Then, if the user has to select a CD, although he or she wants to acquire ten pieces of music, for example, because of the limited budget, it may be difficult for the user to tell which one he or she is most concerned about is.
Additionally, while it is possible for the user to identify pieces of music after they are broadcast by listening to sample sounds contained in the broadcast data if he or she wants to acquire the proper music data by means of such a known system, the system configuration and the configuration of the broadcast data that are transmitted from the broadcasting station to the user terminal are inevitably complex.